On January 14th, the AU Upper Connecticut River Valley of NH/VT Chapter and the Upper Valley Humanists Association co-sponsored an event featuring David Niose. Niose, the author of NonBeliever Nation and former President of the American Humanist Association, discussed his latest book Fighting Back The Right.Read more

The Religious Right celebrated a victory in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, but fundamentalists may soon change their tune if a humanistic group successfully uses its religious beliefs to undo a restrictive new abortion law. Read more

It is well documented that the Religious Right thinks President Barack Obama either isn’t religious enough or is the “wrong” religion. But it turns out that when it comes to presidents and their personal beliefs, these sentiments are nothing new. As it turns out, Americans have a long history of claiming that the president just isn’t Christian enough for their liking. Read more

The Fayette Circuit Court ruled this week that a Lexington, Ky.-based T-shirt printing company did not break the law when it refused to make shirts for the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO).

GLSO had intended to use the shirts in the city’s 2012 Pride Festival, and filed a complaint against the company with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Human Rights Commission. The Commission ruled in GLSO’s favor, but Monday’s decision overturns that ruling. Read more

Tuesday’s marriage arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court hinted at coming battles over the right of religious business owners or organizations to discriminate against gays and lesbians in contexts outside of marriage itself. Indeed, several briefs to the high court—and a few justices at oral argument—suggested that if same-sex people have a constitutional right to get married, it will be more difficult for individuals and businesses to use religion as an excuse to discriminate against same-sex people in other settings. Read more

The Religious Right likes to blame church-state separation for everything from rising crime to falling church attendance. But a former member of Congress thinks separation is responsible for something else as well: football injuries. Read more

Seats inside the U.S. Supreme Court were at a premium today for the oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges, the marriage equality case.

I was fortunate to get a spot in the press gallery. I was in the back row, and my view was obstructed by two large columns, but I’m not complaining; I would have been willing to hang from the rafters for this historic argument, a marathon session that featured five attorneys and lasted two and a half hours. Read more

At today’s U.S. Supreme Court marriage-equality arguments, the focus will be on whether the states’ marriage bans impermissibly discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. But the marriage cases also involve old-fashioned discrimination on the basis of sex. In states without marriage equality, men can marry only women, and women can marry only men. These arguments have not received as much discussion in the cases so far, but they will be before the high court all the same. Read more

A prominent Religious Right figure recently used church-state separation as an excuse to prohibit same-sex marriage, which can mean only one thing: Fundamentalists have run out of ideas to halt marriage equality. Read more